Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? 1/4 to 1/3 acre rehabilitation

Hello all,

I found this wonderful website and spent the a few hours reading posts, and the information you all provide is staggering. It looks like you guys would be able to help get me on the right path.

We are purchasing some property in far North Dallas area, just north of McKinney. And there is an existing pond on the property I would like to get in order. It is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/4 to 1/3 of an acre, I used http://acme.com/planimeter to give me an approximation of the size. But it is surrounded by trees and hard to get a good approximation.

This is all that I know about the pond:
1. 1/4 to 1/3 acre
2. It is fed by the water runoff of the properties uphill from me. It flows into almost a creek bed but not really, see pics. It can pool and create a secondary pond on the other side of the driveway, uphill from the main pond, but only creates this secondary pond when it rains a lot. There has been no water there the two times I have been there in the last month. The water pools in the secondary pond and flows into the main pond thru a culvert under the driveway.
3. The current owner said it is limestone lined and has never dried out in the 30 yrs she has lived there.
4. There are no fish in there and they have never stocked it in 30 yrs.
5. I don't think they have ever done any kind of maintenance to the pond in the 30 yrs.
6. Only frogs and snakes inhabit it right now.
7. Overflow of the pond is controlled by a culvert you can see in Pond 3 and Pond 4 pictures.
8. The water looked pretty clear. You can see at least 1 foot deep, any deeper and i would just be guessing.


What I would like from this pond:
1. MINIMUM, a healthy body of water that doesn't look stagnant or produce millions of mosquitoes. Owner says that mosquitoes are no problem out there, but IDK. The chiggers are horrendous! I got ate up bad the two times I've been out there.
2. Fishing from it would be great! My wife, 4 and 2 1/2 yr old daughters that would love to do it too. The 4 yr old already caught her first Large mouth bass, a baby 4" one, a few months ago while camping. I wouldn't mind going out there every now and then for a few hours to relax. And being able to eat the ones we do catch would be nice but not a priority.

I know it will take years to get the pond to where we would like it, but that's ok. I am going to have soooo much to do around the property that I'm ok with it not being a fishing hole in two months.


We are closing on the property in two weeks, but will be visiting the owners out there next Friday. Is there anything I need to ask the owners that would help out to get things moving? I know the biggest one will be how deep it is. I don't think she is going to know that, and I will not be able to get out there in my kayak until after we close.


Thank you


The pics are screen grabs are from my gopro.

Congrats on your soon to be new pond and property!

If you get fish in the pond, that will almost certainly eliminate the mosquito larvae. The fry of larger fish (bass and bluegill) will eat them, and your forage fish (minnows) will really eat them.

Questions:

Ask the owner if the pond ever goes over the dam in rain events? Spending money on fish and having them lost downstream is not fun.

Have they ever chemically treated the pond for undesirable algae or weeds? If so, with what chemical and what was the treatment schedule?

Have they ever had the silt/muck cleaned from the pond?

I am sure there are better questions out there, so maybe some experts will drop into your thread.

Come back after you close, and you know the depth of the pond. Post your goals for the pond, and hopefully you can get some good advice.

Welcome to PB.

You’ll enjoy the pond. Fish take care of the mosquitoes. However, in nature, skeeters can come from anywhere.
Check the runoff area to ascertain that you have plenty of runoff area.
Compare the pond area to % of a football field. The playing area of a football field is approx one acre.

Thank you for the answers. I will ask those questions when we are out at the property Friday night.

IME healthy stocked ponds make holes in local mosquito populations. In addition to fish in the pond eating any mosquito larvae, a healthy pond produces/attracts bug eaters like dragonflies and barn swallows.

I am reviving my thread from a year ago.

So we did buy the property and have been living here for the past year. But there has been so much to do with renovating the house, cleaning up lots of the property and running after two little ones. I just haven't had time to get out on the pond.

But finally a few days ago I put my kayak in there and was able to go out and measure the depth of the pond.

I measured it to be between 6 and 7 feet deep with an approximate area of 0.2 acres.


There is a lot of growth in the pond, any suggestions on removing it. [img]https://ibb.co/GTH5jTw[/img] There is no "movement" top the water and looks pretty stagnant. Would adding an aerator help?

Thanks for the help guys.

Yay, you got the property!

6-7' deep is a little less than optimum for a small pond in Texas. However, you should be able to support a healthy fish population, especially if you add aeration. (I assume your house is on the grid? If so, how far from AC electricity to the pond?)

Next time you go kayaking, take a 10' stick of 3/4" PVC pipe. Start in the shallow water and poke your pipe to test the firmness of the bottom. Keep checking as you move toward your deepest spots. If your shorelines are firm, but your deep spots are soft for 1-2 feet, then you might have lots of organic muck. It MAY be worthwhile to clean that out, especially if it would add 2' of depth.

Have you fished the pond yet? It is important to know what is in there now, before you decide on your goals and start paying money for stocking.

If you don't have time to fish hard, then maybe just add 1-2# of fathead minnows. If there are no fish in the pond, then you should have tens of thousands of minnows next spring.

I think 0.2 acres might make a nice Bluegill - Largemouth bass pond. However, you have lots of other options. There are many Texas pond people on the forum that have managed ponds with multiple types of fish populations.

Thanks for the response FishinRod!

We are on the grid. The house is about 90-100' from the pond, maybe 130-140' from the electrical panel on the side of the house. I was thinking that it needs some kind of movement in that water, especially in the summer when we are not getting any rain. That water just sits there and doesn't move. It looked like aeration was the cheapest and easiest thing to do.

Next time I'm at the hardware store I'll pickup a 10' pipe an do that.

I am pretty sure there is a lot of organic muck at the bottom. We were manually pulling that growth out of the pond last night with a 1.5-3 lb. grappling hook anchor on a rope and were getting a lot of leaves coming up on the shore with it. As you could see in the picture there are trees all around the outside of the pond. How would I go about clearing out that muck? Last summer we had a little bit longer of a drought than normal and the pond was maybe 3 feet low. I could wait till then to get to the deepest parts a little easier.

I have not fished it yet, but I would say there are zero fish. But we do have 4-5 turtles, seen a few crawfish, a snake, and SO MANY frogs and toads.

I'd be just fine with some Bluegill and Bass in there eventually.